Ninth Street: Allan D'Arcangelo, 1968/2010

“Some blocks in New York are so polychrome they make Carnaby Street look like just another Saville Row,” Peter Blakeproclaimed in New York, in 1968, the year of the magazine’s founding. Public art was popping up everywhere, Blake explained, thanks in part to a “determined urban designer” named David H. Bromberg, who was running around downtown Manhattan convincing landlords to let the exposed sides of their buildings be painted by contemporary artists. This “hard-edge roadscape with directional signs, clouds, abstract flora, and railroad crossings” by the underrated Pop artist Allan D’Arcangelo (whose estate is today represented by Mitchell-Innes & Nash) was Bromberg’s first project. It has since been painted over.